Last month my friend and I rented a room at Toronto’s Ritz Carlton for her birthday. It was fun…checking in after work and feeling like we were on vacation without having to leave our own city. Our room had a beautiful view (for Toronto) and the hotel left us a piece of chocolate cake for the celebration! We had drink’s at Fring’s on King, which apparently Drakes is part owner or something? In the morning we lounged around in our white bathrobes (one day I want to spend my Sundays reading the paper and drinking coffee with my lover in matching, monogrammed,…

Happy New Year! It has been quite sometime since I have had any interest in this particular holiday. I find the occassion to be cursed with a new form of drama each year. So to welcome 2016, instead of making big plans and buying a new party dress, I celebrated with a friend in the form of Chinese takeout and Prosecco in tea cups, whilst watching The Holiday, which I acutally hadn’t seen since it was in theatres! My friends and I have a New Year’s day tradition of having dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory, a really beautifully decorated Italian restaurant on…

The Sugar Plum Fairy’s Tutu…look at her little embellished wings! My favourite Christmas tradition has long been Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. I have attended The National Ballet of Canada’s performance since I was a little girl and I will never tire of the music, the costume, or the enchanting story. Admittedly I saw three renditions this year, including that of The Mariinsky and The Bolshoi, though those were on television and DVD format. I cannot wait to visit St. Petersburg and see the Mariinsky perform at their eponymous theatre, which in my opinion is the second most beautiful piece of architecture…

As a Christmas celebration my mother and I attended High Tea at Toronto’s Windsor Arms Hotel in Yorkville, my favourite of Toronto’s many neighbourhoods. We were sat in the Russian Room, a small red room decorated in Russian style and adorned with framed images of the Russian Royal Family. We were informed by our waiter that the hotel originally housed three restaurants each serving: Russian cuisine, French cuisine and a steakhouse. We were each served our own pot of tea. I opted for a black tea blended with rose petals. The rose petals give the tea a creamy taste, but don’t overpower the flavour of…

This past Wednesday I attended The National Ballet of Canada‘s performance of Shakespeare’s, “The Winter’s Tale” with two friends. The ballet was unlike any I’ve seen before. With very simple sets, as well as costumes. The women wore long, plain dresses and had few costume changes, I don’t think there was a single classic tutu. Christopher Wheeldon’s emotive choreography depicted the story line with more clarity than I have ever witnessed before in a ballet. I looked over at the end of the first act to find one of my friends bawling! As a dancer myself I’m typically more concerned with the…